HILLS 

SOME  SPANISH  AMERICAN  POETS 


Some  Spanish-American  Poets 

By 

Elijah  Clarence  Hills 

49645  | 


Copyright  1915 
By  Elijah  Clarence  Hills 


70  £  ! 

H  5  5  s 


SOME  SPANISH- AMERICAN  POETS.* 


In  the  introduction  to  the  first  volume  of  his  American 
Letters  (Cartas  Americanas,  la  serie,  Madrid,  1889)  Juan 
Valera,  the  eminent  novelist  and  literary  critic,  and 
one-time  minister  to  Washington,  said:  "In  the  natural 
and  exact  sciences,  and  in  industry  and  commerce,  English 
America  .  .  .  has  prospered  more;  but  one  may  say 
without  boasting  that  in  letters,  with  regard  to  both  quan- 
tity and  quality,  Spanish  America  is  in  advance  of  English 
America."  The  distinguished  Hispanic  scholar,  Professor 
James  Fitzmaurice-Kelly,  in  his  History  of  Spanish  Litera- 
ture (New  York,  1908),  gives  the  reply  courteous  to  Valera 
in  these  words:  "He  (Valera)  rarely  writes  without  estab- 
lishing some  ingenious  and  suggestive  parallel  or  pronoun- 
cing some  luminous  judgment;  but  ...  his  desire 
to  please  often  stays  him  from  arriving  at  a  clear  con- 
clusion .  .  .  his  sauve  complaisance  becomes  a  formid- 
able weapon  in  such  a  performance  as  the  Cartas  Americanas, 
where  .  .  .  you  set  the  book  down  with  the  impression 
that  the  writers  of  the  South-American  continent  have  been 
complimented  out  of  existence  by  a  stately  courtier." 

After  reading  many  volumes  of  Spanish-American 
verses,  one  is  led  to  believe  that  Hispano-American  poetry, 
though  more  voluminous,  is  probably  not  a  whit  finer  and 
nobler  than  that  of  English  America;  and  that,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  in  no-wise  inferior.  In  attempting  to  study  the 
poets  of  Spanish  America,  one  is  confronted  with  a  bewil- 
dering array  of  mediocre  poets,  above  whom  seem  to  rise 
here  and  there  a  greater  artist.  But,  after  all,  whatever 
one's  choice  of  these  artists  may  be,  it  will  have  been 
largely  influenced  by  personal  taste;  and  it  is,  therefore, 
with  considerable  diffidence  that  six  poets  have  been 
chosen,  not  as  certainly  the  best  in  every  respect,  but  as 


*This  article  has  been  given  as  a  lecture  at  Harvard  University,  the  University  of 
Wisconsin,  the  University  of  California,  and  Colorado  College. 


222 


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representative  of  the  best  that  Spanish  America  has  given 
to  the  world  of  letters. 

The  two  most  notable  women-writers  of .  Spjijnish 
America  are  Avellanecla  and  Sor  Juana  Ines  tie  la  Cruz. 
Much  has  been  written  about  Gertrudis  Gomez  de 
Avellaneda  y  Arteaga  (1816-1873),  the  romantic  poetess, 
who  was  born  in  Cuba  but  went  to  Spain  at  the  age  of 
twenty,  and  is  therefore  generally  considered  a  Spanish 
rather  than  a  Cuban  writer.  Sor  Juana  Ines  (1651-1695), 
the  Mexican  nun  of  the  seventeenth  century,  is  not  so  well 
known.  Her  worldly  name  was  Dona  Juana  Ines  de 
Asbaje  y  Ramirez  de  Cantillana,  and  it  is  no  wonder, 
therefore,  that  she  preferred  the  simple  pen-name  of  "Julia." 
The  lady  first  saw  the  light  of  day  in  a  village  near  Mex- 
ico City.  Her  father,  Don  Pedro  Manuel  de  Asbaje,  was 
a  Basque  of  good  family,  and  her  mother  was  a  Mexican 
lady  of  Spanish  descent,  Dona  Isabel  Ramirez.  Tradition 
holds  that  Juana  Ines  was  a  precocious  child,  as  tradition 
is  wont  to  hold  with  regard  to  children  who  had  in  them 
the  germ  of  greatness.  It  is  said  that  when  she  was  only 
three  years  of  age  she  slipped  away  to  school  one  day  with 
an  older  sister,  and  learned  to  read  and  write  before  her 
mother  knew  that  she  was  going  to  school  at  all.  When  still 
a  small  child  she  astonished  her  parents  by  announcing  that 
as  cheese  dulled  the  intellect  she  would  eat  no  more  of  it. 
At  the  age  of  seven  or  eight  years  Juana  Ines  began  to 
write  verses,  her  first  composition  being  one  in  honor  of 
the  Blessed  Sacrament.  As  there  were  no  colleges  for 
women  in  Mexico  during  the  seventeenth  century,  our 
little  lady  is  said  to  have  begged  her  father  to  let  her  dress 
as  a  man  and  thus  attend  one  of  the  colleges  in  Mexico 
City.  This  request  was  refused  by  an  unsympathetic 
father;  but  he  allowed  her  to  begin  the  study  of  Latin 
with  a  tutor.  With  only  twenty  lessons,  supplemented  by 
much  private  reading,  Juana  Ines  acquired  so  complete  a 
command  of  Latin,  if  her  biographers  can  be  trusted,  that 
she  wrote  and  spoke  it  perfectly.  But  after  all  these 
exaggerated  statements  have  been  sifted,  the  fact  remains 


Some  Spanish-American  Poets. 


223 


that  the  child  had  intellectual  curiosity  in  an  unusual 
degree,  as  may  be  gathered  from  this  statement  that  occurs 
in  her  writings:  "Since  the  first  light  of  reason  illumined 
me,  I  had  so  vehement  and  strong  an  inclination  to  letters, 
that  neither  the  reproofs  of  others,  of  which  I  have  had  many, 
nor  my  own  reflections,  of  which  I  have  made  not  a  few, 
sufficed  to  turn  me  from  this  natural  impulse  which  God 
gave  me.  .  .  Since  in  women  the  natural  beauty  of  the 
hair  is  so  highly  esteemed,  I  cut  off  five  or  six  finger-lengths 
of  mine,  .  .  .  and  imposed  upon  myself  the  law  that 
when  it  grew  again  to  where  it  was  before,  if  I  did  not 
know  this  or  the  other  thing  which  I  had  set  out  to  learn 
in  the  meantime,  I  should  cut  it  off  again  as  punishment 
for  my  stupidity;  .  .  .  for  it  did  not  seem  reasonable 
to  me  that  a  head  so  bare  of  ideas  should  be  adorned  with 
hair." 

When  still  a  young  girl  Juana  Ines  became  a  maid-in- 
waiting  in  the  viceroy's  palace,  where  her  beauty  and  wit 
attracted  much  attention.  But  she  soon  renounced  the 
worldly  life  of  the  court,  and  apparently  moved  by  a 
determination  never  to  marry,  joined  a  religious  order.  In 
the  convent  of  San  Jeronimo  she  turned  for  solace  to  books. 
She  was  an  indefatigable  reader,  and  in  time  she  accumu- 
lated a  library  of  four  thousand  volumes,  as  well  as  several 
musical  instruments  and  some  scientific  apparatus.  Two 
years  before  her  death  Sor  Juana  received  from  the  bishop 
of  Puebla  a  letter  that  affected  her  greatly.  The  bishop 
censured  her  devotion  to  worldly  studies,  and  urged  her  to 
give  her  mind  thereafter  entirely  to  God.  The  sister,  who 
was  now  forty-two  years  old,  complied  with  the  advice 
even  more  fully  than  the  good  bishop  had  intended.  After 
selling  her  books  and  instruments  and  giving  the  proceeds 
to  the  poor,  Sor  Juana  made  a  general  confession,  wrote 
with  her  own  blood  a  solemn  declaration  of  faith,  and 
renouncing  all  worldly  things  during  the  remaining  months 
of  her  life,  she  gave  herself  entirely  to  religious  meditation 
and  penance. 

On  reading  the  verses  of  Sor  Juana,  one  is  immediately 


224  Colorado  College  Publication. 


struck  by  their  unevenness.  The  defects  and  errors,  of 
which  there  are  many,  seem  largely  due  to  hasty  impro- 
visation or  to  the  dark  and  devious  ways  of  Gongorism. 
In  this  connection,  however,  and  in  all  fairness  to  the 
poetess,  one  must  acknowledge  that  most  of  her  verses, 
considering  the  period  in  which  they  are  written,  are 
extraordinarily  free  from  Gongoristic  exaggeration.  Her 
better  verses  are  of  two  kinds:  those  that  give  evidence  of 
an  unusual  degree  of  cleverness  and  mental  acuteness,  and 
those  that  have  the  ring  of  spontaneity  and  sincerity.  She 
was  rather  too  fond  of  making  a  display  of  her  cleverness 
on  all  occasions,  and  only  in  some  of  her  erotic  and  relig- 
ious poems  does  this  fondness  for  display  sink  beneath  a 
rising  tide  of  tumultuous  passion.  As  an  exponent  of 
erotic  mysticism  Sor  Juana  is  most  interesting.  In  the 
most  passionate  of  her  erotic  verses  there  is  an  apparent 
sincerity  which  makes  it  difficult  for  the  lay  reader  to 
believe  that  she  had  not  been  profoundly  influenced  by 
human  love, — as  when  she  gives  expression  to  the  feelings 
of  a  loving  wife  for  a  dead  husband,  or  laments  the  absence 
of  a  lover,  or  tells  of  a  great  jealousy. 

In  addition  to  her  lyrics,  Sor  Juana  wrote  three  autos 
(short  dramatic  compositions  in  which  the  characters  are 
biblical  or  allegorical) :  The  Scepter  of  Saint  Joseph  (El 
Cetro  de  San  Jose),  Saint  Hermenegild  (San  H ermenegildo) , 
and  The  Divine  Narcissus  (El  Divino  Narciso)  which  is 
the  best  of  the  three  and  contains  some  beautiful  mystic 
songs;  and  two  secular  plays:  Love  is  a  Greater  Laberynth 
(Amor  es  Mas  Laberinto),  from  the  story  of  Theseus  and 
Ariadne,  and  The  Obligations  of  a  House  (Empenos  de  una 
Casa),  an  imitation  of  the  capa  y  espada  drama  of  Cal- 
deron.  It  was  unfortunate  for  the  fame  of  Sor  Juana  that 
her  poems  were  first  published  (Vol.  I,  Madrid,  1689) 
under  the  bombastic  title,  Castalian  Inundation  of  the 
Unique  Poetess  and  Tenth  Muse  (Inundacion  Castdlida  de 
la  Unica  Poetisa,  Musa  Decima),  Sor  Juana  Ines  de  la 
Cruz;  but  such  titles  were  then  in  fashion. 

As  to  the  place  held  by  this  Mexican  nun  in  Spanish 


Some  Spanish-American  Poets.  225 

literature,  critics,  of  course,  disagree  (if  critics  agreed,  there 
would  be  no  need  of  critics).  Menendez  y  Pelayo,  in  his 
Anthology  of  Spanish- American  Poets,  Vol.  I,  declares  Sor 
Juana  superior  to  all  other  Spanish  poets  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second;  but  this,  after  all,  is  not  great  praise, 
for  good  poets  were  not  numerous  during  that  period. 
Pimentel,  in  his  History  of  Mexican  Poetry,  censures  Juana 
Ines's  frequent  errors  in  diction  and  in  prosody  and  her 
occasional  Gongoristic  expressions,  and  proclaims  the  Mex- 
ican friar,  Manuel  Navarrete  (1768-1809),  a  greater  phil- 
osophic and  religious  poet.  But  when  all  has  been  said  and 
done,  the  fact  remains  that  Sor  Juana  is  Mexico's  greatest 
poetess,  and  her  finest  poems  may  be  read  by  all  with 
pleasure  and  profit.  Her  most  widely  known  verses,  but 
by  no  means  her  best,  are  the  quatrains  in  defence  of 
woman.  The  following  lines  are  a  free  rendering  of  some 
of  the  stanzas  of  this  poem: 

Oft  you  do  everything  you  can 

To  lead  a  woman  into  shame, 
And  then,  unjust  and  foolish  man, 

You  give  the  woman  all  the  blame. 

You  seek  to  kiss  her  modest  lip, 

You  lure  her  with  the  sirens'  call, 
You  do  your  best  to  make  her  slip, 

And  yet  you  blame  her  if  she  fall. 

Your  humor,  Sir,  so  strangely  grim, 

Completely  lacks  a  sense  of  right : 
Why  do  you  make  the  mirror  dim 

If  you  desire  it  to  be  bright? 

And  who  is  worse,  now  tell  me,  pray, 
Who  most  excites  old  Satan's  grin, 

The  one  who  weakly  sins  for  pay, 

Or  the  strong  man  who  pays  for  sin? 

Oh  you  should  try,  at  any  price, 

To  shield  a  maid  from  sin  and  shame; 

But  if  you  lead  her  into  vice, 

You  ought  to  love  her  just  the  same! 

The  three  pre-eminent  classic  poets  of  Spanish  America 
are  Bello  of  Venezuela,  Olmedo  of  Ecuador,  and  the  Cuban 
Heredia.  Of  these,  Don  Andres  Bello  (1781-1865)  was  the 
most  consummate  master  of  poetic  diction,   though  he 


226 


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lacked  the  brilliancy  of  Olmedo  and  the  spontaneity  of 
Heredia.  Born  in  Caracas  and  educated  in  the  schools 
of  his  native  city,  Bello  was  sent  to  England  in  the  year 
1810  to  further  the  cause  of  the  revolution,  and  he  remained 
in  that  country  till  1829,  when  he  was  called  to  Chile  to 
take  service  in  the  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs.  His 
life  may,  therefore,  be  divided  into  three  distinct  periods. 
In  Caracas  he  studied  chiefly  the  Latin  and  Spanish  clas- 
sics and  the  elements  of  international  law,  and  he  made 
metrical  translations  of  Virgil  and  Horace.  Upon  arriving 
in  England  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine  years,  he  gave  him- 
self with  enthusiasm  to  the  study  of  Greek,  Italian  and 
French,  as  well  as  to  English.  These  nineteen  years  in 
England  were  still  a  part  of  the  formative  period  of  Bello's 
life,  for,  unlike  Sor  Juana,  his  development  was  slow.  He 
read  and  wrote  incessantly  when  not  engaged  in  giving 
private  lessons  in  order  to  earn  his  livelihood, — for  he  re- 
ceived little  support  from  America.  He  came  to  know 
many  scholars,  and  he  was  especially  intimate  with  James 
Mill,  whom  he  is  said  to  have  helped  to  decipher  an  enig- 
matic document  of  Bentham,  and  with  Blanco- White,  and 
other  Spanish  men  of  letters  who  were  living  there  in  exile 
on  account  of  their  liberal  views.  Bello  joined  with  the 
Spanish  and  Hispano-American  scholars  in  London  in  the 
publication  of  several  literary  reviews,  notably  the  Censor 
Americano  (1820),  the  Biblioteca  Americana  (1823),  and  the 
Repertorio  Americano  (1826-1827),  and  in  these  he  published 
many  of  his  most  important  works.  Here  appeared  his 
studies  of  Old  French  and  of  the  Song  of  My  Cid,  his  ex- 
cellent translation  of  fourteen  cantos  of  Boiardo's  Orlando 
innamorato,  several  important  articles  on  Spanish  syntax 
and  prosody,  and  the  best  of  all  his  poems,  the  Silvas 
Americanos. 

In  1829,  when  already  forty-eight  years  of  age,  Bello 
removed  to  Chile,  and  there  entered  upon  the  happiest 
period  of  his  life.  Besides  working  in  a  government  office, 
he  gave  private  lessons  until  in  1831  he  was  -made  rector 
of  the  College  of  Santiago.    In  the  year  1843  the  University 


Some  Spanish-American  Poets. 


227 


of  Chile  was  established  at  Santiago,  and  Bello  became  its 
first  rector.  He  held  this  important  post  till  his  death 
twenty-two  years  later  at  the  ripe  age  of  eighty-four. 
During  this  third  and  last  period  of  his  life  Bello  com- 
pleted and  published  his  Spanish  Grammar  and  his  Prin- 
ciples of  International  Law,  works  which,  with  occasional 
slight  revisions,  have  been  used  as  standard  text-books  in 
Spanish  America,  and  to  some  extent  in  Spain,  to  the 
present  day.  The  Grammar,  especially,  has  been  extra- 
ordinarily successful,  and  the  edition  with  notes  by  Jose 
Rufino  Cuervo  is  still  the  best  text-book  of  Spanish  gram- 
mar we  have.  In  the  Grammar  Bello  sought  to  free  Cas- 
tilian  from  Latin  terminology;  but  he  desired,  most  of  all, 
to  correct  the  abuses  so  common  to  writers  of  the  period, 
and  to  establish  linguistic  unity  in  Spanish  America. 

Bello  wrote  little  original  verse  during  these  last  years 
of  his  life.  At  one  time  he  became  very  fond  of  Victor 
Hugo  and  even  tried  to  imitate  him;  but  his  classical 
training  and  methodical  habits  made  success  difficult. 
His  best  poetic  work  during  his  residence  in  Chile,  however, 
are  translations  of  Victor  Hugo,  and  his  free  metrical  ren- 
dering of  La  Priere  pour  Tons  (from  the  Feuilles  aV Au- 
tomne),  is  amongst  his  finest  and  most  popular  verses. 

It  is  interesting  that  Don  Andres  Bello,  a  distinguished 
scholar  in  linguistics  and  in  international  law,  should  also 
have  been  a  pre-eminent  poet.  All  critics,  except  possibly 
a  few  of  the  present-day  "modernistas,"  place  his  American 
Silvas  amongst  the  best  poetic  compositions  of  all  Spanish 
America.  The  Silvas  are  two  in  number:  the  Allocution 
to  Poetry  (Alocucion  a  la  Poesia),  and  the  Silva  to  the  Agri- 
culture of  the  Torrid  Zone  (Silva  a  la  Agricultura  de  la  Zona 
Torrida).  The  first  is  fragmentary:  apparently  the  poet 
despaired  of  completing  it,  and  he  embodied  in  the  second 
poem  an  elaboration  of  those  passages  of  the  first  work 
which  describe  nature  in  the  tropics.  The  Silvas  are  in 
some  degree  imitations  of  Virgil's  Georgics,  and  they  are 
the  best  of  Spanish  imitations.  The  great  literary  critic, 
Menenclez  y  Pelayo,  was  willing  to  admit  (Antologla  de 


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Poetas  hisp.-am.,  II,  p.  CXLII)  that  Bello  is,  "in  de- 
scriptive and  georgic  verse,  the  most  Virgilian  of  our 
(Spanish)  poets."  Caro,  in  his  splendid  biography  of 
Bello  (in  Miguel  Antonio  Caro's  introduction  to  the  Poesias 
de  Andres  Bello,  Madrid,  1882)  classifies  the  Silvas  as 
"scientific  poetry,"  which  is  quite  true  if  this  sort  of  poetry 
gives  an  esthetic  conception  of  nature,  expressed  in  beau- 
tiful terms  and  adorned  with  descriptions  of  natural  objects. 
It  is  less  true  of  the  Allocution,  which  is  largely  historical, 
in  that  it  introduces  and  sings  the  praises  of  towns  and 
persons  that  won  fame  in  the  revolutionary  wars.  The 
Sjlra  to_Agriculture,  which  is  both  descriptive  and  moral, 
may  be  best  described  in  the  words  of  Caro.  It  is,  says 
this  distinguished  critic,  "an  account  of  the  beauty  and 
wealth  of  nature  in  the  tropics,  and  an  exhortation  to  those 
who  live  in  the  equator  that,  instead  of  wasting  their 
strength  in  political  and  domestic  dissensions,  they  should 
devote  themselves  to  agricultural  pursuits."  Bello's  in- 
terest in  nature  had  doubtless  been  stimulated  by  the 
coming  of  Humboldt  to  Caracas  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  In  his  attempt  to  express  his  feeling 
for  nature  in  poetic  terms,  he  probably  felt  the  influence 
not  only  of  Virgil,  but  also  of  Arriaza's  Emilia  or  the  Arts 
and  of  the  several  poems  descriptive  of  nature  written  in 
Latin  by_Jesuit  priest^,  such  as  the  once  famous  Rusticalio 
Mexicana  by  Father  Landlvar  of  Guatemala.  And  yet 
there  is  very  little  in  the  Silvas  that  is  directly  imitative. 
The  Silva  to  the  Agriculture  of  the  Torrid  Zone,  especially, 
is  an  extraordinarily  successful  attempt  to  give  expression 
in  Virgilian  terms  to  the  exotic  life  of  the  tropics,  and  in 
this  it  is  unique  in  Spanish  literature.  The  beautiful 
descriptive  passages  in  this  poem,  the  noble  ethical  pre- 
cepts, and  the  severely  pure  diction,  combine  to  make  it 
a  ..classic  that  will  long  hold  an  honored  place  in  Spanish 
letters. 

Although  the  poetry  of  Ecuador  is  of  relatively  little 
importance  as  compared  with  that  of  several  other  Ameri- 
can countries,  yet  Ecuador  gave  to  the  world  one  of  the 


Some  Spanish-American  Poets. 


229 


greatest  of  American  poets.  Don  Jose  Joaquin  cle  £)lmedo 
(1780-1847)  was  born  in  Guayaquil  when  that  city  still 
formed  part  of  the  Viceroyalty  of  Peru.  Consequently 
two  countries  claim  him, — Peru,  because  he  was  born  a 
Peruvian  and  because,  furthermore,  he  received  his  edu- 
cation at  San  Marcos  University  in  Lima;  and  Ecuador, 
since  Guayaquil  became  permanently  a  part  of  that  re- 
public, and  Olmedo  identified  himself  with  its  social  and 
political  life.  Olmedo  ranks  as  one  of  the  great  poetic 
artists  of  Spanish  literature  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  He  is  of  the  same  neo-classic  school  as 
Quintana,  and  like  him  devoted  to  artistic  excellence  and 
lyric  grandiloquence.  Olmedo's  serious  poems  are  thor- 
oughly imbued  with  the  Graeco-Latin  classical  spirit.  His 
prosody  nears  perfection;  but  it  is  marred  by  an  occasional 
abuse  of  verbal  endings  in  rime,  and  the  inadvertent  em- 
ployment of  assonance  where  there  should  be  none,  faults 
common  to  many  of  the  earlier  Spanish-American  poets. 
His  greatest  poem  is  The  Victory  of  Junin  (La  Victoria  de 
Junin),  which  is  filled  with  sweet-sounding  phrases  and 
beautiful  images,  but  is,  logically,  inconsistent  and  im- 
probable. Even  Bolivar  the  Liberator,  to  whom  the  poem 
is  addressed,  censured  Olmedo  in  a  letter  for  using  the 
machina  of  the  appearance  at  night,  before  the  combined 
Colombian  and  Peruvian  armies,  .of  Huaina-Capac  the 
Inca,  "showing  himself  to  be  a  talkative  mischief-maker 
where  he  should  have  been  lighter  than  ether,  since  he 
comes  from  heaven,"  and,  instead  of  desiring  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Inca  dynasty,  preferring  "strange  intruders  who, 
though  avengers  of  his  blood,  are  descendents  of  those  who 
destroyed  his  empire."  The  Song  to  General  Flores  (Canto 
al  General  Flores)  is  considered  by  some  critics  to  be  the 
poet's  most  finished  work,  though  of  less  substance  and 
inspiration  than  The  Victory  of  Junin.  This  General 
Flores  was  a  successful  revolutionary  leader  during  the 
early  days  of  the  republic,  and  he  was  later  as  bitterly 
assailed  by  Olmedo  as  he  is  here  praised.  Of  a  different 
type  is  the  philosophic  poem,  To  a  Friend  upon  the  Birth 


230 


Colorado  College  Publication. 


of  His  First  Child  (A  un  Amigo  en  el  Nacimiento  de  su 
Primogenito),  which  is  filled  with  sincere  sympathy  and 
deep  meditation  on  the  future.  With  the  coming  of  middle 
age  Olmedo's  poetic  vein  had  apparently  been  exhausted, 
and  the  Peruvian  poet  Felipe  Pardo  addressed  to  him  an 
ode  in  which  he  sought,  though  to  no  avail,  to  stimulate 
the  older  bard  to  renewed  activity.  Olmedo,  as  a  poetic 
genius,  loomed  suddenly  upon  the  horizon  of  Guayaquil, 
and  after  his  departure,  there  was  for  years  no  one  to  take 
his  place.  In  politics  Olmedo  was  as  prominent  as  he  was 
in  letters.  A  jurist  of  note,  he  was  sent  by  his  native  city 
in  1810  to  the  Spanish  Cortes  at  Cadiz,  where  he  took  an 
important  part  in  the  deliberations  of  that  revolutionary 
body.  Soon  after  his  return  to  America  in  1816  he  was 
selected  by  Bolivar  to  represent  Colombia  at  the  Court  of 
Saint  James,  and  in  England  he  became  a  close  friend  of 
Bello.  After  the  secession  of  Ecuador  from  the  earlier 
Colombia,  Olmedo  was  honored  from  time  to  time  with 
high  political  offices.  The  best  edition  of  Olmedo's  Poesias 
is  that  of  Gamier  Freres,  Paris,  1896,  with  notes  and  a 
biographical  article  by  Clemente  Ballen. 

The  Cuban  poet,  Don  Jose  Maria  Heredia  (1803-1839), 
is  better  known  in  Europe  and  in  the  United  States  than 
either  Bello  or  Olmedo,  since  his  poems  are  more  universal 
in  their  appeal.  He  is  especially  well  known  in  the  United 
States,  where  he  lived  in  exile  for  over  two  years  (1823- 
1825),  at  first  in  Boston  and  later  in  New  York.  Although 
Heredia  died 

"Nel  mezzo  del  cammin  di  nostra  vita," 

his  brief  pilgrimage  through  life  was  crowded  with  varied 
experiences.  Born  in  Cuba,  he  studied  in  Santo  Domingo, 
and  in  Caracas  (1812-1817),  as  well  as  in  his  native  island. 
Accused  of  conspiracy  against  the  Spanish  government,  he 
fled  to  the  United  States  in  1823,  and  there  eked  out  a  pre- 
carious existence  by  giving  private  lessons.  In  1825  he 
went  to  Mexico,  where  he  was  well  received,  and  where  he 
held  several  important  posts,  including  those  of  member  of 
Congress  and  judge  of  the  superior  court.    In  Heredia's 


Some  Spanish-American  Poets. 


231 


biography  two  facts  should  be  stressed:  that  he  studied 
for  five  years  in  Caracas,  the  city  that  produced  Bolivar 
and  Bello,  respectively  the  greatest  general  and  the  great- 
est scholar  of  Spanish  America;  and  that  he  spent  only 
twelve  years,  all  told,  in  Cuba.  As  he  lived  for  fourteen 
years  in  Mexico,  that  country  also  claims  him  as  her  own, 
while  Caracas  points  to  him  with  pride  as  another  child 
of  her  older  educational  system. 

Heredia  was  most  unhappy  in  the  United  States.  He 
admired  the  political  institutions  of  this  country;  but  he 
disliked  the  climate,  and  he  despaired  of  learning  English. 
In  one  of  his  patriotic  hymns,  To  Emilia,  he  says: 

"The  furious  north-wind  roars, 

And  borne  upon  its  wings  the  stinging  ice 

Swoops  down  upon  us  and  devours  the  earth. 

A  fog  doth  veil  the  splendor  of  the  sun, 

And  hides  from  us  the  sky 

Which  on  the  dim  horizon  is  confused 

With  the  gray  sea.    The  naked  trees  are  scourged 

By  wintry  blasts,  and  toss  and  groan  in  pain. 

No  living  thing  is  seen  amid  the  fields 

Where  desolation  reigns  and  solitude. 

Oh,  shall  my  suffering  eyes  ne'er  se'e  again 

The  gently  swaying  leaves  of  graceful  palms 

As  they  glow  golden  in  the  western  light? 

Shall  1  not  mock  the  glare  of  midday  sun 
'Neath  the  banana's  loudly  rustling  leaves, 

While  gentle  breezes  fan  my  heated  face? 

With  regard  to  the  English  language,  he  adds: 

Instead  of  thy  sweet  speech,  I  hear,  alas! 

The  strange,  harsh  sounds  of  a  barbaric  tongue. 

And  in  one  of  his  letters  to  a  friend  in  Cuba  he  says:  "I 
do  not  understand  how  so  great  a  people  has  come  to  use 
so  execrable  a  jargon."  Some  of  the  North-American  cus- 
toms also  seemed  strange  to  him,  as  when  he  wrote:  "Here 
one  may  kill  a  man  with  his  fists  without  fear  of  punish- 
ment; but  they  hang  without  fail  one  who  attacks  another 
with  a  pointed  knife.  Thus  it  is  that  here  table  knives 
have  rounded  ends  so  as  to  avoid  trouble." 

Let  me  add  by  way  of  digression  that  Heredia,  who  was 
a  cousin  of  the  French  sonnetist  of  the  same  name,  was  not 


232 


Colorado  College  Publication. 


the  only  Cuban  poet  to  suffer  persecution.  Of  the  seven 
leading  Cuban  poets,  often  spoken  of  as  "the  Cuban  Pleiad," 
Avellaneda  removed  to  Spain  where  she  married  and  spent 
her  life  in  tranquillity;  and  Joaquin  Luaces  avoided  trouble 
by  living  in  retirement  and  veiling  his  patriotic  songs  with 
mythological  names.  On  the  other  hand,  Jose  Jacinto 
Milanes  lost  his  reason  at  the  early  age  of  thirty  years, 
Jose  Maria  Heredia  and  Rafael  Mendive  fled  the  countr}r 
and  lived  in  exile;  while  Gabriel  Valdes  and  Juan  Clement e 
Zenea  were  shot  by  order  of  the  governor-general.  Truly, 
in  Cuba,  the  wages  of  poetry  is  death! 

Heredia,  unlike  Bello  and  Olmedo,  was  not  a  classic 
scholar.  His  acquaintance  with  the  Latin  poets  was 
limited  and  seldom  does  a  Virgilian  or  Horatian  expression 
occur  in  his  verses.  Though,  strictly  speaking,  not  a 
romantic  poet,  he  was  a  close  precursor  of  that  movement. 
His  language  is  not  seldom  incorrect  or  lacking  in  sobriet}^ 
and  restraint;  but  his  numbers  are  musical  and  his  thought 
springs  directly  from  imaginative  exaltation.  Heredia's 
poorest  verses  are  doubtless  his  early  love-songs:  his  best 
are  those  in  which  the  contemplation  of  nature  leads  the 
poet  to  meditation  on  human  existence,  as  in  Niagara, 
The  Temple-Pyramid  of  Cholula  (El  Teocalli  de  Cholula), 
In  a  Tempest  (En  una  Tempestad),  and  To  the  Sun  (Al 
Sol).  In  these  poems  the  predominant  note  is  that  of  gentle 
melancholy.  In  Cuba  his  best  known  verses  are  the  two 
patriotic  hymns,  To  Emilia,  and  The  Hymn  of  an  Exile 
(Himno  del  Desterrado).  These  were  written  before  the 
poet  was  disillusioned  by  his  later  experiences  in  the  tur- 
bulent Mexico  of  the  second  and  third  decades  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  they  are  so  virulent  in  their  expression 
of  hatred  of  Spain  that  Menendez  y  Pelayo  refused  to 
include  them  in  his  Anthology.  Heredia  undertook  to  write 
several  plays,  but  without  success.  Some  translations  of 
dramatic  works,  however,  were  well  received,  and  especially 
those  of  Ducis's  A bufar,  Voltaire's  Mahomet,  and  Alfieri's  Saul. 
The  Gamier  edition  (Paris,  1893)  of  Heredia's  Poesias  contains 
an  interesting  introduction  by  the  literary  critic,  Elias  Zerolo. 


Some  Spanish-American  Poets.  233 


That  great  extent  of  fertile  plains  and  lofty  mountains, 
which  is  now  called  Argentina,  was  of  comparatively  little 
importance  in  the  literary  history  of  the  Spanish  colonies, 
as  compared  with  the  populous  and  cultivated  vice-royal- 
ties of  Mexico  and  Peru.  Argentina  was  actually  governed 
from  Lima,  Peru,  till  1778  when  the  new  vice-royalty  of 
Buenos  Aires  was  established.  And  yet  today  it  is  the  rival 
of  Chile  for  the  hegemony  of  the  Spanish- American  states, 
and  Buenos  Aires  is  the  largest  and  wealthiest  Spanish- 
speaking  city  in  the  world. 

Don  Olegario  Victor  Andrade  (1838-1882)  is  generally 
recognized  as  one  of  the  foremost  poets  of  America  (his 
Obras  Poeticas  were  published  by  the  Argentine  govern- 
ment,— Buenos  Aires,  1887).  In  art,  Andrade  was  a  dis- 
ciple of  Victor  Hugo;  in  philosophy,  he  was  a  believer  in 
modern  progress  and  freedom  of  thought.  His  verses  have 
inspiration  and  enthusiasm;  but  they  are  too  often  marred 
by  excessive  grandiloquence  combined  with  incorrectness 
of  speech.  Atldntida,  a  hymn  to  the  future  of  the  Latin 
race  in  America,  and  Prometeo,  an  ode  to  the  emancipation 
of  human  thought,  are  the  poet's  noblest  works.  The 
following  translation  of  a  few  stanzas  of  Atldntida  will  give 
some  idea  of  its  content: 

The  passing  centuries  the  secret  kept. 
But  Plato  saw  it  dimly  when  beside 
The  Aegean  sea,  he  gazed  upon  the  shadows 
Falling  softly  on  Hymettus'  peak, 
And  spake  mysterious  words  with  restless  waves 
That  groaned  beneath  his  feet.    He  knew  the  name 
Of  this  last  child  of  Time,  destined  to  be 
The  Future's  bride,  where  dwells  eternal  spring; 
And  called  it  fair  Atlantis. 
But  God  thought  best  to  give  the  mighty  task 
To  Latin  men,  the  race  that  tamed  the  world, 
And  fought  its  greatest  battles. 

And  when  the  hour  was  struck,  Columbus  came 
Upon  a  ship  that  bore  the  fate  of  Man, 
And  westward  made  his  way. 
The  wild  tumultuous  Ocean  hurled  against 
The  tiny  Latin  ship  the  black  north  wind, 
While  whirlwinds  roaring  fiercely  rode  astride 
The  lightning's  blood-red  steed. 
Forward  the  vessel  moved,  and  broke  the  seal 
Of  Mystery;  and  fair  Atlantis  woke 
At  last,  to  find  her  in  a  dreamer's  arms! 


234 


Colorado  College  Publication. 


Often  the  victor  over  thrones  and  crowns, 
The  restless  spirit  of  the  ancient  race 
Had  found  fulfilment  of  its  noblest  dream, — 
Abundant  space  and  light  in  distant  zones! 
With  armor  newly  forged,  nor  dragging  now 
The  blood-stained  winding-sheet  of  a  dead  past, 
Nor  weighted  down  by  blackest  memories, 
Once  more  it  ventured  forth  in  eager  quest 
Of  liberty  and  glory. 

Before  it  lay  a  vast,  unconquered  world. 
Here,  resting  on  the  sea,  'neath  tropic  skies, 
And  bathed  in  the  white  light  of  rising  dawn, 
The  Antilles  lift  their  heads,  like  scattered  birds 
That  utter  plaintive  cries, 
And  dry  their  snowy  wings  that  they  may  fly 
To  other,  distant  shores. 

Here  rises  Mexico  above  two  seas, 
A  granite  tower  that  even  yet  would  seem 
To  spy  the  Spanish  fleet  as  it  draws  near 
Across  the  Aztec  gulf; 
And  over  there  Colombia,  lulled  to  sleep 
By  the  deep  roar  of  Tequendama's  fall, 
Within  its  bosom  hides  unfailing  wealth. 

Hail,  happy  zone!    Oh  fair,  enchanted  land, 
Beloved  child  of  the  creative  sun 
And  teeming  home  of  animated  life, 
The  birth-place  of  the  great  Bolivar, — hail! 
In  thee,  Venezuela,  all  is  great: 
The  flashing  stars  that  light  thee  from  above; 
Thy  genius  and  thy  noble  heroism, 
Which  with  volcanic  force  and  deafening  crash 
Burst  forth  on  San  Mateo's  lofty  peak! 

Outstretched  below  the  Andes'  mighty  chain, 
Like  one  who  weeps  above  an  open  grave, 
The  Incas'  Rome  doth  lie. 
Its  sword  was  broken  in  the  bloody  strife, 
And  in  obscurity  its  face  was  sunk. 
But  still  Peru  doth  live! 
For  in  a  virile  race 
Defeat  doth  spell  a  new,  a  nobler  life. 
And  when  propitious  toil,  which  heals  all  wounds, 
Shall  come  to  thee  at  last, 
And  when  the  sun  of  justice  shines  again 
After  long  days  of  weeping  and  of  shame, 
The  ripening  grain  shall  paint  with  flowers  of  gold 
The  crimson  cloak  that  o'er  thy  shoulder  floats. 

Bolivia,  namesake  of  the  giant*  born 
At  Mount  Avila's  foot. 
Hath  kept  his  lively  wit  and  valiant  heart, 
With  which  to  face  the  storm  and  stress  of  life. 


^General  Bolivar. 


Some  Spanish-American  Poets. 


235 


It  dreams  of  war  today;  but  also  dreams 

Of  greater  things,  when  'stead  of  useless  guns, 

The  engines  made  of  steel 

Shall  boldly  bridge  the  vales  and  scale  the  hills. 

And  Chile,  strong  in  war  and  strong  in  toil, 
Hangs  its  avenging  arms  upon  the  wall, 
Convinced  that  victory  by  brutal  strength 
Is  vain  and  empty  if  it  be  not  right. 
And  Uruguay,  although  too  fond  of  strife, 
The  sweet  caress  of  progress  ever  seeks; 
Brazil  f,  which  feels  the  Atlantic's  noisy  kiss, 
With  greater  freedom  were  a  greater  state; 
And  now  the  blessed  land, 
The  bride  of  glory,  which  the  Plata  bathes 
And  which  the  Andean  range  alone  doth  bound! 

Let  all  arise,  for  'tis  our  native  land, 
Our  own,  our  native  land,  which  ever  sought 
Sublime  ideals.    Our  youthful  race  was  lulled 
E'en  in  the  cradle  by  immortal  hymns, 
And  now  it  calls,  to  share  its  opulence, 
All  those  who  worship  sacred  liberty, 
The  fair  handmaid  of  science,  progress,  art.    .    .  . 
Our  country  turns  its  back  on  savage  war, 
And  casts  away  the  fratricidal  sword, 
That  it  may  bind  upon  its  haughty  brow 
A  wreath  of  yellow  wheat, 
Lighter  to  wear  than. any  golden  crown.    .  . 
The  sun  of  ultimate  redemption  shines 
On  our  beloved  land,  which  strides  ahead 
To  meet  the  future,  and  with  noble  mien 
Offers  the  Plata's  overflowing  cup 
To  all  the  hungry  nations.    .  . 

With  the  appearance  in  1888  of  a  small  volume  of  prose 
and  verse  entitled  Azul,  by  Don  Ruben  Dark)  (18G4-)  of 
Nicaragua,  came  the  triumph  of  the  "movement  of  eman- 
cipation," the  "literary  revolution,"  which  the  "decadents1' 
had  already  initiated  in  France,  and  in  its  train  there  came 
inevitably  a  general  attack  on  poetic  traditions.  This 
movement  was  hailed  with  joy  by  the  young  men  of  Latin 
America,  who  are  by  nature  more  emotional  and  who  live 
in  a  more  voluptuous  environment  than  their  cousins  in 
Spain;  for  they  had  come  to  chafe  at  the  coldness  of  contem- 
porary Spanish  poetry,  at  its  lack  of  color  and  its  "pet  ri- 
fled metrical  forms."  With  the  success  of  the  movement 
there  was  for  a  time  a  reign  of  license,  when  port  vied  with 


jThese  lines  were  written  before  Brazil  became  a  republic. 


236  Colorado  College  Publication. 


poet  in  defying  the  time-honored  rules,  not  only  of  versi- 
fication, but  also  of  vocabulary  and  syntax.  But  as  in 
France,  so  in  Spanish  America,  "decadence"  has  had  its  day, 
though  traces  of  its  passing  are  everywhere  in  evidence, 
and  the  best  that  was  in  it  still  lingers. 

When  reproached  by  the  Spaniards  for  their  imitation 
of  French  models,  the  Spanish  Americans  make  this  reply: 
"We  imitated  your  neo-classicism  and  your  romanticism,  both 
of  which  you  borrowed  from  France:  now  Ave  prefer  to 
borrow  directly."  In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  the  decadent  movement  was  felt  later  and  to  a 
less  degree  in  Spain,  and  some  Spanish-American  writers 
even  hold  that  it  came  to  Spain  from  America.  These 
writers  also  tell  us  modestly  that  their  form  of  Castilian 
(which  they  call  neo-espanol)  is  more  expressive  and  ornate 
than  that  which  is  still  spoken  on  the  arid  plains  of  the  two 
Castiles,  and  that  their  bards  are  superior  in  number  and 
in  quality  to  those  of  Spain. 

Today  their  poets  are  turning  their  attention  more  and 
more  to  the  study  of  sociological  problems  or  to  the  cement- 
ing of  racial  solidarity.  These  notes  ring  clear  in  some 
recent  poems  of  Dark),  and  of  Don  Jose  S.  Chocano  of  Peru, 
and  Don  Rufino  Blanco-Fombona  of  Venezuela.  The  fol- 
lowing lines  are  a  translation  of  an  ode  by  Dario,  which 
was  addressed  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  when  he  was  still  president 
of  this  country.  The  meter  of  the  poem  is  mainly  the  Old 
Spanish  Alexandrine,  but  with  a  curious  intermingling  of 
shorter  lines.  In  all  fairness  it  should  be  stated  here  that 
Senor  Darfo,  in  a  recent  letter  to  the  writer  of  this  article, 
has  said:  "I  do  not  think  today  as  I  did  when  I  wrote 
those  verses." 

'Tis  only  with  the  bible  or  with  Walt  Whitman's  verse, 
That  you,  the  mighty  hunter,  are  reached  by  other  men. 
You're  primitive  and  modern,  you're  simple  and  complex, — 
A  veritable  Nimrod  with  aught  of  Washington. 
You  are  the  United  States; 
You  are  the  future  foe 

Of  free  America  that  keeps  it  Indian  blood, 

That  prays  to  Jesus  Christ,  and  speaks  in  Spanish  still. 


Some  Spanish-American  Poets.  237 

e  a  fine  e 
learned  i 
opposed; 


opposed  •  '  t0  ToIst<>y  you're 


A    ^1       ~^l^ocu ,  " 

Yon  f  a  Professor  of  energy)" 

T^Vr?11-  *?  be  P^uaded  ^ 
1  hat  life  is  but  combustion, 
a  5  Pro^ress  is  eruption, 
^nd  where  you  send  the  bullet 
ton  bring  the  future 


No. 


land  st1?l  nvPeyeSw!5d  fierC6'  barbaric 'soul,  '  ' 
Take  ca"'  and  ,oves  «"» 

you  Hold  us  fast  in  your  grasping,  iron  claws, 
oug'h  you  count  on  all,  one  thing  is  lacking:  God! 

Elijah  Clarence  Hills 

49645 


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